PSL chairman Farai Jere strongly criticized CAPS United supporters for their actions during the Castle Lager Premiership match against FC Platinum at Mandava Stadium last Saturday. Their invasion of the pitch led to the match being abandoned.
With only four minutes left in regulation time, the match was halted due to security concerns. CAPS United fans had swarmed the pitch in protest over a disallowed goal, creating an unsafe environment for the referees.
Jere, who is also the president of CAPS United and a ZANU PF MP, said he was outside the country on a business trip when the incident occurred.
He made a resolute commitment to hold his own club accountable, adding that no one would be exempt from scrutiny. Said Jere (via The Herald):
This is totally unacceptable. I’m not around but I’ve been reading and watching what has been happening. We don’t take the law into our own hands. What CAPS United supporters did is unacceptable in whatever way you look at it.
CAPS United fans should not have taken the law into their own hands. It’s unacceptable, it’s very wrong. We have seen decisions being made which are not correct in football but the game moves on.
At the end of the day, we want football to be the winner. The referee’s decision is final. When the referee signalled that it was offside, there were still two minutes to play and there was going to be additional time and we could have scored one or two goals, it happens in football.
This is now going to put the position of the club in a very bad state and to a bigger extent the brand PSL and our football at large.
We want our fans to come and enjoy football. Football this year is exciting with the way things are happening.
Jere called for the protection of referees and urged football stakeholders to respect their decisions. He said:
Let’s protect our referees so that we enjoy football. There are moves to make sure we have good referees in our league.
We have reduced the number of referees who officiate in the PSL so that we have quality. The referees keep on working and they keep on improving.
We need to respect life; we need to respect our referees. If you have grievances there are channels where you can launch your complaint.
Some of them have been suspended when reports came in. But generally, the quality of our refereeing has improved.
